Wednesday, April 3, 2013

ByAnnie's Soft and Stable giveaway



Remember my recent post about using ByAnnie's Soft and Stable in a bag?

When I find something fantastic and new to me I want to share it! 

I was really pleased with how my bag turned out when I used Soft and Stable.  It was flexible and firm, but certainly not slouchy or stiff.  I know you were interested in it too, as I got many questions from readers. 

Well, here's your chance to win some Soft and Stable to try it out for yourself!
  







In case you aren't familiar with it yet, Soft and Stable can be used instead of batting or other stabilizers in bags and other craft projects. 

Annie had created some amazing bag patterns and she was using headliner foam for her bags.  You know, that foamy stuff used to upholster the inside of the roof in your car?  Some of her students had a difficult time finding the headliner foam, so Annie found a manufacturer to make an even better product for her.  Lucky for us, ByAnnie's Soft and Stable was created!

Soft and Stable is a fairly dense sheet of foam with fabric on both sides, which makes it so easy to use.  It's lightweight and it keeps it's shape.

No need to quilt it if you don't want to! 

ByAnnie's Soft and Stable can be placed right up against the feed dogs of your machine, unlike batting.  This opens up so many possibilities!








Now, if you just can't wait to get your hands on some, ask for ByAnnie's Soft and Stable at your LQS or visit Annie's website.  Be sure to watch the video tutorials she has there and see what the fuss is all about.  

I especially enjoyed the Quilt As You Go With ByAnnie's Soft and Stable tutorial. She uses Soft and Stable to make placemats, no extra quilting needed. 

"Purse Parts" are also available on her site.  I was happy to see that.  I like to put swivel hooks on some of my bags and I have a difficult time finding them.  Now I know where to look! She has so many options!      

    Annie has kindly offered to send one of my readers an 18" x 58" package of white ByAnnie's Soft and Stable.

What a great opportunity for you to try out a new product!  Thanks so much Annie!

For a chance to win, no need to jump through hoops.

Just leave a comment on this post and I'll randomly choose a winner in a week.  Let's say your comment has to be in by 10:00 pm Wednesday, April 10th.  Oh, that would be eastern time since that's what time zone I'm in. 

Good luck!



Saturday, March 30, 2013

A little more wiggle



Another row of Wiggle Whimsy.......done!






It's part of a sew along that Terry is having and it turns out that so many bloggers are excited about the quilt that they've already finished!

Including Terry!

I'm excited about that actually! I've been holding back from completing all the rows.

It's an easy, fun, addictive pattern. I can certainly see why there are quite a few complete!  







Maybe next time I have a few sewing hours to spare, I'll just keep sewing until it's done! 

Or maybe I'll enjoy working on it a little at a time.

Lots of options!



Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Spring stitching



I've been doing a bit of Spring stitching this week!





The kids have the week off, so this is the perfect project to work on.

Just the stems left to go!



Sunday, March 24, 2013

Finished off with piping







I've finished off my Drop quilt recently and I thought I'd share a few pictures with you before I put the label on and find a home for it.






After making this quilt over the summer, I started looking for the next quilt that needed piping and Drop was the one.

I used Fig Tree Tapestry mini-charms and an older Fig Tree fabric from the line Cornucopia for the border, binding and backing.

I don't know why I had so much of this dot fabric, but it was perfect for this project!  






The quilting on Drop was simple stitching in the ditch with invisible monofilament thread.

I thought piping that matched the border would be a great way to add some pizzaz to this little quilt.

Reading Susan Cleveland's book, Piping Hot Binding, made it easy for me to figure out how the process of piping works. You can check out a few pictures in this post.





It was easy and fun and now I'm on the lookout again for another quilt that needs piping!




Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Working on something sweet



It's WIP Wednesday here in the middle of a busy week full of birthdays, track meets, and Spring Break planning!

When I haven't been busy taking care of the family I've been putting together my Sweetwater Label Crew project for this month.

It's a super cute Spring table runner that I hope to be able to show you soon.






I did some of my cutting yesterday and I hope to work on some sewing tonight.

  I had a hard time cutting into that adorable Noteworthy fabric!  It just looked so nice all bundled up in the package I found on my doorstep over the weekend......"Hmmm. Where did that come from?"

If it wasn't for a Spring table runner, you can bet that fabric would still be on my cutting mat all neatly folded up, only to be admired!

Once again I'm linking up with Lee, over at Freshly Pieced, to show everyone what I'm working on.  Go on over and look at what other bloggers are working on too!






On a rather random note, in the past few weeks I've made several recipes I found at Kevin and Amanda, and they are so good! 

One week we even had the same meal twice!  Back by popular demand!  And I don't mean leftovers.  That's certainly never happened before.

I love trying new recipes, so we have quite a few family favorites in our dinner rotation and don't usually eat the same thing in at least two or three months forget about in one week!

I've got a few more of Amanda's recipes planned for the rest of the week. We'll try them out and then I'll be sure to let you know about our favorites.  They're sure to be quick, easy, and tasty!

What do you have planned for dinner this week?   

     

Sunday, March 17, 2013

St. Patrick's Day







This morning I made our traditional shamrocks with breadstick dough, cinnamon, and green sugar.  Oh, and green milk to drink!

This evening we're having our corned beef on Rubens warmed in the crockpot.

What are you doing to celebrate?




Wednesday, March 13, 2013

My Wacky WIP on Wednesday


Okay, don't laugh.  My WIP this week is the beginnings of a rag rug that I'm attempting to knit out my my fabric scraps.

Needless to say it's not going well.

Keep in mind I've never knitted before. And I'm discovering that maybe this isn't the best project for beginners.

On the other hand maybe it is.  Because it's kind of wacky and scrappy it might cover up any mistakes I've made. I'm not sure yet. It's too soon to tell.

Not too soon to tell if I've made any mistakes, just too soon to tell how visible they will be!






I'm pretty clueless about knitting, but I just love the idea of this rag rug.  Using strips and selvages that would normally get thrown away is pretty neat.

   Amanda Jean at crazy mom quilts has done some posts about making these rag rugs and she put the directions in her book too.  I wish my rug looked like her's!  

I am planning to pull this all out and start over.  Maybe that will happen today.  Seeing this picture has convinced me that my stitches are just way too tight.  I'm having trouble with the needles because of this.


  After reading some knitting blogs, I think I need to go back and make a conscious effort to make my stitches bigger.  Maybe even casting on to two needles to make the stitches on the loose side.


I'd appreciate any suggestions that you might have!! 






Well, I'm linking up with Lee from Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.  If you're curious about what other bloggers are up to, go over and check out her blog.  Lots of great projects to see!

Remember my last post about Soft and Stable, a great new product to use when making bags?  Annie, the maker of Soft and Stable, was kind enough to stop by and leave a comment with lots more great information about it.  If you're interested in reading more about Soft and Stable, you might want to go back here and see what she has to say.

I hope you get some quilting time in today!